


Lullaby

by TheOtherCourse (kanevixen)



Series: The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth [6]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Real Person Fiction, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Cell Phones, Estrangement, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanevixen/pseuds/TheOtherCourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following directly after Fall, Tom and Kristiane finally talk through their confusing relationship, and some of the complications they’ve faced with the long distance between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lullaby

**LULLABY**

“That’s a loaded question, Mr. Hiddleston,” I stated flatly. Dubious optimism, though an oxymoron, perfectly defined my mood once our conversation took this detour. I wanted the opportunity to speak my mind and I hadn’t been given the chance since Tom walked out of my life. Yet, there were delicate matters that I was unsure I could tell him straight out.

“Is it, Ms. Taylor? Lay it on me.”

“I’m not sure, Tom, if you want to hear everything I have to say.” The anticipation of both the good and the bad of this potential exchange and our budding relationship tripped my pulse up with nervous energy. Street savvy Kristie knew that I shouldn’t speak what was brewing in my head and heart since he left me. I tugged at my hair, looping and lacing the strands between my fingers, inspecting the ends for frayed or split hairs. I bought a few minutes of silence over the phone, considering the consequences of being painfully honest. I was never good at standing up for my desires in my love life. The first and last time I did, the man I loved and laid my heart on the line for left me.

“Hey, Kristiane…” The even smooth honeyed utterance of my name felt so much like a prayer from him. Tom’s inflection and intonation were seeped with our friendship and all that we went through together, how much we meant to each other, our wishes as a couple, our insecurities as individuals. I always felt that he knew and understood more about our dynamic than I did, but that was at the heart of the conflict between us. He made all the decisions about our lives as lovers, rather as two separate identities with no trace of what we meant to each other, except one timepiece in my possession.

“Kristiane, I don’t want you to feel that way… afraid to speak your mind, your heart. Tell me something, anything that you’ve not the opportunity to say… anything.” I couldn’t help but swoon over the way he pronounced the ‘-ing’s at the end of his words. He always dropped the ‘g’ and my insides liquefied to hot caramel, decadent and delicious. “I want your truth, whether you think it’ll hurt me or not.”

Objecting softly, I whispered, “Tom…”

“Air it out,” he said definitively. “Part of the reason I fell in love with you was for the surprising frankness that came out of your mouth. So let’s clean the slate between us. Tell me.”

“I want to believe in us, Tom. But I don’t want to feel like I’m the only one who does, and I don’t want to force you into anything… especially if you’re not ready,” I reluctantly admitted in response to his prodding. I sagged into my pillows again, deflated by putting into words my hopes and my fears. As open and honest that we’d been during his week with me, there was still so much left unsaid and unresolved between us. This time apart was making us deal with those issues, individually and together. “I feel like I can’t fully commit to that believing in us and I’m torn.”

“Why the caution?”

“Because I don’t know when you’re going to ignore that I exist again,” the truth escaped my mother before my filter began its full functionality. If I’d been thinking, I could’ve cushioned the blow of the naked truth. I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth.

I could be honest about a date with another man, but this was a personal attack on how he chose to deal with the long distance between us. I hated that he ignored me for weeks, and that he could while I was left pining away for him, but I didn’t mean to strike out at him for it. This was the very reason why I didn’t want to get into this discussion. I wasn’t sure that I could be diplomatic about it.

Tom took a deep slow breath, and finally said, “I deserved that.”

“Oh, God, Tom… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.”

I could almost hear him comb his hand through his hair as he played my words over in his mind. He always digested everything I told him, and this would certainly give him enough to chew on. He was quick to soothe me, “No, no… not at all, Kristie. I deserved that and I understand the malice behind it. I asked for your candor.”

I trained my eyes to the pair of plastic ducks on my dresser across the room, gifts from the man on the phone. He got so much right between us, but he also got some of it wrong. “Tom, I can’t help it. I’d like to feel irresistible sometimes. I want to feel like you can’t live without me, because there are days that I miss you madly.” As I said it, I sounded irrationally needy. I was being as unreasonable as he was about my date with another man.

A non-accusatory question followed, “Do you doubt my affection for you?”

“At times, and yet you left me with your most prized possession… and I don’t know what to make of all of it,” I replied. The silence that succeeded was deafening. He asked for my truth and as soon as it was out, I wanted to take it back. “Tom, let me explain…”

“Kristie, you don’t have to. I get it,” there was no edge or sharpness in his voice. I only heard acceptance.

“Do you? Do you really?”

“I do. The man who claims to love you can go weeks without talking to you, and you can’t justify the dichotomy of it.” The compassion that he held for my situation was evident in his tone.

Tom was a good man, even if we didn’t see eye to eye on our separation and how to handle our relationship. Tears welled behind my eyes, stinging for release but I wouldn’t give in to it. “I know that you meant well, Tom, and I get it, but at the same time, I don’t. I’m trying.”

“I think I’ve underestimated your feelings for me, and I know I have mine for you.” He sighed in defeat, “You’re right… but please don’t misunderstand- It’s been excruciatingly painful not to share in your life – a text or a phone call or Skype. Shameful, actually. But I thought I was doing the noble thing, letting you go and not subjecting you to a long distance relationship.”

“Tom…”

“No. You’re right. My intention was pure and what I thought was for the best. Please know that I thought about you often, too often. And please don’t doubt my feelings for you. I do love you, Kristie.”

I rolled onto my side, staring at my poster of A Tale of Two Cities the Musical, clutching a pillow to my chest to contain my racing heart. I missed him and when he told me that he loved me, my skin burned for his touch, to soothe the pain of being without him. An ache sunk into my tissues, an all too familiar hurt that I missed him. I murmured, “Say it again.”

“I love you, Kristiane.” There was no better lullaby late night on a Sunday night. Those four words – there was no description for the comfort I took from his verbal confirmation.

“I love you, too.”

“Can we start over?” he suggested amicably. “I can’t have you questioning my feelings for you. My ideal solution has been less than ideal obviously.”

“I’d like to be friends again.” I wanted to be so much more than a friend to him, but we could progress from there. I didn’t like the weeks without talking, and his assuming that I would wait for him with nothing in return. “I want to be a part of your everyday, even if it isn’t every day. I know you’re busy and I’m not insinuating myself into every aspect of your life. I’d just like to figure in there somewhere, like we used to talk once a week and catch up.”

I could almost feel Tom smile through the phone. “I’m not confident that we can be friends anymore… if being friends means I have to be supportive of your dating other men, I’m going to be a very bad friend.”

I teased affectionately, “Enough to catch the next flight out? Because Terry’s got other friends…”

“If only I could.”

“Are you seeing anyone out there, Tom?”

“No, I’m afraid that I’m already spoken for. There’s a gorgeous Broadway star with a beautiful singing voice with a penchant for Oscar Wilde and giving me a hard time who stole my heart.”

A massive grin split the grim expression I’d been wearing only a few moments earlier. “I’ve heard of her, but you might have your work cut out for you. She’s got it bad for someone else.”

“Oh?”

“A gentleman by the name of Seuss.”

Tom laughed into the phone, remembering one of our first conversations that we’d ever had. “I think you’re misinformed, my lovely friend. They had a falling out some time ago over wockets.”

Giggling musically, I agreed, “That… I think you’re right. She’s been hanging around with some Englishman who resembles Fitzgerald, and may be the luckiest ass in all of Hollywood, working with some very high profile directors.”

“He may be an arse and completely out of his league with the likes of her, but he’s madly in love with his leading lady.”

My fluttering heart and the wicked butterflies in my belly increased with the overwhelming compliments. With all seriousness and gumption I could muster after being swept off my feet, I admitted, “Tom, I’m crazy for you too.”


End file.
